


past friends

by riririn



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Hawke's life is too weird, Heart-to-Heart, post-Inquisition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-10 14:17:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19506199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riririn/pseuds/riririn
Summary: It was hard work, being Garrett Hawke.One night in the Hanged Man, Hawke and Varric reflect.





	past friends

Being Garrett Hawke was hard work, especially for Garrett Hawke. Some might claim it wasn't work for anyone else but Garrett Hawke, but on that he begged to differ.

”You see, Varric, all the bandits just jumping, no raining down on me, that's part of being Garrett Hawke! So it's really not hard work for me but also for those endless waves of bandits I have to kill, and everyone we disturb with our fights,” the one and only Garrett Hawke exclaimed one evening in the Hanged Man, the local disreputable but oh so loveable hangout with too many drunken louts.

”They're not being Garrett Hawke, they're just getting caught it the crossfire,” was the answer of his most loyal friend, Varric Tethras, the recently-named Viscount of Kirkwall.

Hawke waved his hand dismissively, finished his beer and called for another. He looked around before leaning in and saying ”you know, on my way back from Weisshaupt, I ran into our old friend. The blond one. Magely-inclined, much like myself,” and wiggled his fingers in what was an approximation of doing magic. At least in his drunken mind.

”Did you now? And?”

”Well, we chatted for a good hour or two, I showed him my new amazing ice-magic trick I learned a while back and he showed me a card-trick he'd been trying to master and hadn't, and we parted our ways,” was the answer, delivered with an easy smile and some jester. It didn't fool Varric. Eventually, Hawke sighed and leaned into his arms.

”We did talk, if that matters. I don't really know if it was him or not, but at least he sounded like himself. I told him not to come back here. I don't really feel happy about it, but the truth is he wouldn't last long in here. And I know you don't want him here.” He paused. ”I don't really want him here anymore, either.”

Varric thought on that for a moment. ”It's not like I never think about the old times, before all of it went completely batshit crazy,” was his eventual answer.

Hawke snorted, a truly dignified sound from a man his size. ”The life of Garrett Hawke has, for the most part, been completely batshit crazy. I swera, I try to go out and get something to eat at some reputable place and that's the day it turns out that the place is a cover for a well-run assassin's organization and something else. Like I said, it's hard work, being Garrett Hawke.”

”And being his friend, some might say. Would we not be right there with you, when things like that were discovered?” Varric said. Truth be told, he missed the the days when restaurants being covers for assassins was normal. Living in a world where a split sky and battling red stone monsters was the norm put things into a perspective.

”Yes, well, yu could have stopped being my friend when I still accepted resignations. Now it's too late, and you're all doomed to be a part of the weirdness I call my life,” Hawke said, with an easy smile. Too easy. His smile was stilted in a way that had nothing to do with how much he'd had to drink. Still, Varric decided to play his part and snorted.

”I wasn't aware there was a point when you accepted resignations. Was it before or after you became the Champion of Kirkwall?”

”For you, before we went to the Deep Roads. After that, there was no getting rid of good old me for you. No, you have been doomed, for a longer time than anyone, to watch me and Isabela -”

”Isabela and I,” Varric interrupted with a smirk. Hawke just swayed gently in his seat and gave him a _don't interrupt me while I'm monologuing_ -look.

”Me and Isabela,” he continued pointedly, ”go in circles around each other until we decided to just bang each other and then go in some more circles until we were alone again and to make the best and most animalistic -”

”Okay, thank you, I've heard enough. And for the record, the circles you and Isabela circled were, in my opinion, better than the one's you would have circled with Blondie, or our friend the broody Elf, even.”

Hawke fell silent, at that. For a moment.

”You know, before everything, Anders told me that there was something between us, and that I knew it too. I told him there was nothing. I don't think it would have changed anything, if there had been.”

Varric sighed. ”No, I don't think it would have, either.”

”Well, dodged that fireball, anyway, didn't I? Might be the only fireball I've ever dodged, but it's better than nothing, am I right?”

”Yeah, at least you dodged that fireball. And think of it this way: The Tale of the Champion was tragic enough as it is, isn't it? Wouldn't have been fair to anyone if I'd had to write it even more tragic. So really, not only wouldn't it not have changed what happened, you also saved your friend from writing too much heartache! That ought to warm your big, altruistic heart, my old friend.”

Hawke tipped his head back and laughed. ”A public service, really,” he told the ceiling once he stopped laughing.

Still staring at the ceiling, he said ”you know, I hope he finds some semblance of peace, with everything that's happened. Not sure I ever want to be around him, really, but I admired the rebel I met in Darktown.”

Varric didn't know what to say to that. He had admired Blondie, too, once, but that was a lifetime ago.

Hawke raised his tankard. ”To friends we once had,” he said. And even after everything, Varric found that he could still toast to that.

**Author's Note:**

> Despite the abysmal fighting system and the goddamn endless waves of those goddamn bandits and the repetitive missions and the time jumps where it feels like nothing at all happened in the past three years since everyone's still talking about what the previous act ended on... despite all it's flaws, Dragon Age II is my favourite. It's the characters and the tragedy that's Hawke's life.


End file.
